A state ban on commercial food waste finalized this month will push local supermarkets and school districts to send their excess food to be recycled or composted.

The new rules, announced Feb. 7, are aimed at reducing the state’s waste stream by 30 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050.

Under the ban, any vendor that disposes at least a ton of organic material each week must "donate or repurpose" the useable food — the remaining food waste will be shipped to an anaerobic digestion facility.

Saugus Director of Public Health Frank Giacalone said the vendors most likely to be affected by the ban are mostly limited to supermarkets and school kitchens. He said it could also affect the town’s larger restaurants.

The Department of Environmental Protection will enforce the new regulations, which are scheduled to take effect on Oct. 1.

Officials expect that vendors will send food waste to be converted to energy or sent to composting or animal-feed operations.

Giacalone said the Rocky Hill Farm — an organic waste facility on Butterfield Road that has already drawn ire from neighbors who claim the composting processes create an unpleasant odor and attract seagulls — could process the food waste according to the new rules if it applies to do so.

"They have to apply through the DEP," Giacalone said. "They’re already approved to accept a certain amount of tonnage right now, but to do anything additional they have to go through them."

Giacalone said where the food is taken will depend on the hauling company employed by each supermarket, restaurant or school.

According to the state, food materials and organics account for 25 percent of the current waste stream. The ban does not apply to residential food materials or food waste from small businesses, and is expected to affect about 1,700 entities statewide, including supermarkets, colleges, hotels, hospitals, nursing homes and restaurants.